A Sports Nutritional Plan plays an integral role in recovery from exercise and optimal sporting performance. In this article I will illustrate the role it plays and how to ensure that you can implement your Nutritional Sports Plan today.
Let me be very clear from the outset: Exercise is one of the most powerful medicines that most of us are lucky to have at our disposal.
The benefits of exercise are unquestionable:
- reduced fat mass
- increased muscle mass
- increased fitness levels
- improved mental health
- and it also helps combat against systemic diseases such as diabetes, heart attacks, stroke, dementia but to name a few.
However, like many things in life, the picture is not so black and white.
At an extreme level, exercising too much or too hard (otherwise known as ‘overtraining’) without implementing adequate recovery time between sessions or a balanced nutritious diet ,can potentially lead to a whole list of adverse effects.
Typically, these may include:
- injury
- elevated perceptions of perceived exertion
- impaired reaction times
- reduced movement economy
- reduced performance in training and competition
- loss of motivation
- and increased susceptibility to illness.
How Can I Reduce the Risk of Overtraining?
There are two keys steps I find essential…
1 Create a Simple Training Plan
Using a notebook and pen or excel / google docs sheet, it is a very simple task to create an effective training plan.
Goals
Personally, I start with being very clear about what I want to achieve. For example:
- Reduce my fat mass by 2kg over the next 6 weeks.
- Improve my running time for 5k over a 10 week period.
- Improve my fitness levels so that I can complete an Ironman in 12 months.
Whatever your goals or aspirations are, start there and reverse engineer your dreams from that point.
Exercise
The next step is to decide how many times a week you are going to exercise, how long each session will last for and what type of exercise you are going to engage in.
Recovery
Then you need to ensure there is enough time between each exercise to ensure you are fully recovered and ready for the next session, to enable you squeeze the ‘performance towel’ dry when it comes to achieving your goal.
Intensity
Finally, you need to structure the intensity of the contents of the exercise sessions. Personally, I use a polarised approach: 80% of my exercise is carried out at a low intensity while only 20% is carried out at a high intensity.
For example, if we take running, I will ensure that 80% of the total distance I run in a week is at a comfortable pace and 20% is at full gas (high speed).
The same holds true for cycling, lifting weights, etc. Train mainly low and sparingly high to achieve optimal results.
There are other training ideologies for sure but I find this approach particularly effective.
2 Create a Food Diary
Creating a food diary is a very effective way to ensure that you consume appropriate nutrient intake at the right time to help avoid the overtraining process.
This may seem like it’s overkill, however, I have found that unless I strategise my eating and drinking habits then I run the risk of going into a training session without having taken on enough carbohydrates (which are broken down to glycogen in the muscles which is needed to fuel exercise) or water.
This type of ad-hoc approach to dietary intake often leads to last minute trips to a McDonalds drive-thru, mood swings due to being ‘hangry’, feeling tired, muscle soreness and ongoing declines in exercise performance.
As the saying goes, “you cannot out train a bad diet”. And the first place a bad diet starts is with a lack of planning.
Should I Supplement With Carbohydrate & Protein After Every Exercise Session?
If your exercise intensity is light, and the recovery period between exercise sessions is reasonably long, there is no added benefit of supplementing with carbohydrate and/or protein drinks immediately post exercise. Simply ensuring that you take on board a well balanced nutritious diet is more than adequate.
This is probably the most common question I get asked. The answer, although not black and white, would be “no”.
Carbohydrate Supplementation Following Endurance Exercise
The only time you really need to consider supplementing with carbohydrate or protein supplements immediately following exercise is during periods of prolonged heavy intense exercise programs.
Numerous scientific studies support the practice of taking on carbohydrates within 1 hour post heavy endurance exercise, as it produces faster replenishment of muscle glycogen levels in comparison to delaying this intake.
Ingesting a carbohydrate drink or some carbohydrate based snacks is an easy solution to ensure you optimise muscle glycogen replenishment within that golden hour following intense exercise.
Protein Supplementation Following Endurance Exercise
There is a big trend among the ‘bro science’ community and academic literature to advocate the use of protein supplementation following intense resistance type training to increase lean muscle mass. However, the effects of protein supplementation in comparison to carbohydrate consumption for endurance type training is understudied and, therefore, there is less of a consensus on this type of supplementation.
There is, however ,a number of research groups who advocate co-ingesting carbohydrates and protein following endurance training to enhance muscle glycogen replenishment even quicker than taking on carbohydrates alone. Therefore, one might infer that the type of food you take on board following training depends on the type of exercise and what your goals are.
FURTHER READING: The Ultimate SImple Guide To Sports Nutrition
Final Thoughts
Hopefully this short article illuminates how important a sports nutrition and training plan when exercising to ensure optimal recovery and sporting performance. If you have any questions or comments then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
